608 THE HORSE. 



quire them. The breeder, by possessing adequate know- 

 ledge of the principles of breeding, will avoid the error of 

 injudicious mixtures of blood, and of employing females for 

 breeding which are unsuited for the purpose ; and the con- 

 sumer will refuse to purchase animals which are wanting in 

 that harmony of conformation, and constitutional soundness, 

 without which no horse can be depended upon for perform- 

 ing the services required of him. The more palpable defects 

 of a large proportion of our mixed class of half-bred horses 

 are the want of depth of the chest, the flatness of the sides, 

 and the too great apparent length of the limbs. Such horses 

 are technically termed Weedy, and they form perhaps the 

 worst class of saddle-horses in any country in Europe. They 

 have, for the most part, spirit enough, but they are deficient 

 in strength and bottom ; and, although they may be easy in 

 their paces, they are usually feeble in their limbs, and un- 

 safe. Great numbers of these very worthless creatures are 

 every year reared and brought to market, which the result 

 shews not to be worth half the food they have consumed. 



IV. HORSES FOR HEAVY DRAUGHT. 



1. THE OLD ENGLISH BLACK HORSE. From early re- 

 cords we learn that a race of Horses of a black colour has 

 existed in Europe from a remote age. It appears to have 

 been the prevailing race of the north of Gaul, and of Ger- 

 many from the mouth of the Rhine eastward, having in- 

 habited, it may be, in the wild state, 'the vast regions of 

 marsh and forest which stretched all through Europe east- 

 ward to the Euxine Sea. It was well known to the Romans, 

 who derived the most powerful horses of their cavalry from 

 Belgic Gaul ; and when at length, in an evil hour, the Bar- 

 barians, as if by a common impulse, poured their swarms into 

 southern Europe, then the Great Black Horse of the North 

 became an instrument of destruction, and an object of terror ; 



